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Gov. Rick Scott on Sunday officially asked for federal help in the wake of Tropical Storm Debby. He requested that President Obama make a major disaster declaration for the state, allowing counties hit hard by the storm to qualify for aid.

Residents use a boat to get to their house inundated by floodwaters from Tropical Storm Debby in Lafayette County on Wednesday, June 27. (AP Photo/The Gainesville Sun, Doug Finger)

The Federal Emergency Management Agency will review the request and advise the president on whether to issue a declaration. If Obama doesn’t grant the request, Scott said, he will file for suplementary assistance from the Small Business Administration.

Gov. Scott’s request is based on the findings of FEMA teams that surveyed damage in Baker, Bradford, Columbia, Pasco and Wakulla Counties. Debby made landfall June 27 in Steinhatchee, a remote fishing village north of Cedar Key in the southern part of Taylor County on the northern Gulf Coast. But the storm’s impact was felt statewide. The primary concern was the prolific rainfall, which resulted in flooding of major rivers. The Sopchoppy and the St. Marys reached record-breaking crests.

Tropical Storm Debby’s torrential rains are still affecting northeast Florida roads, according to the Florida Department of Transportation. Jacksonville.com is reporting closed and impassable roads in Duval, Clay, Nassau, Columbia and Suwanee counties.

In Clay County, near Jacksonville, officials are requesting an evaluation by the state and FEMA for inclusion in Gov. Scott’s request to President Obama. News4Jax.com reports that 579 residences were found to have been damaged by flooding and that costs have reached $4 million for infrastructure repair and debris removal.

In Southwest Florida, Debby stripped vast amounts of sand and dune — 50 feet wide in same cases — from area beaches, far exceeding what researchers would have expected from a tropical storm, said Hilary Stockdon, a research oceanographer with the United States Geological Survey. Most of the region’s beaches from Pinellas County south to Charlotte lost at least 10 to 15 feet of strand and dune to Debby’s persistent pummeling, according to a report by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Stockdon said the early-season battering makes the area’s beaches much more vulnerable to future storms.

More than 150,000 cubic yards of sand was lost at Manatee County’s Coquina Beach because of the storm, representing a preliminary loss of $2.3 million from last year’s beach renourishment project there, according to Charlie Hunsicker, county director of natural resources. The Bradenton Herald reports that 10 to 15 teams of investigators are traveling the state, reviewing damage from Santa Rosa County to Collier County. Wind speed and a long duration are among the reasons why the storm did so much damage, the paper quoted oceanographer Stockdon as saying.

In Tampa Bay, Red Cross officials say they hope the storm will be a wakeup call to residents. Many were caught unprepared. The Red Cross estimates that just 7 percent of the population had a plan, according to a report on WTSP.com. The officials said from what they saw after the storm, many people were caught off guard. “They really weren’t prepared to keep as close an eye as they needed to on the rain levels and what was happening,” said Linda Carbone of the Red Cross. “They didn’t have a stock of water and weren’t really prepared from an emergency standpoint to be cut off for a few days.”